Brown Panther remains in a race against time to be fit to defend his crown in the Irish St Leger at the Curragh.

Tom Dascombe's stable star was a brilliant winner of the Curragh Group One last September and made the perfect start to the year with victory in the Dubai Gold Cup at Meydan.

A narrow defeat at the hands of the talented Snow Sky in the Yorkshire Cup had connections eyeing another tilt at the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot before injury intervened.

Brown Panther is now on the road to recovery, but Dascombe admits it will be a close call as to whether or not he returns to Ireland on September 13.

The Cheshire handler said: "He's being ridden now, as well as swimming, but he probably won't start cantering until next week.

"We are looking at six or seven weeks after that (before he runs), so let's see how he progresses.

"The Irish St Leger is the race we want to go for, obviously, but we'll just have to wait and see.

"He won't be able to run before then, anyway."